Useless, useless

[MaddieM]

Ruthless, ruthless---in reference to his pursuers and the person who shot him

Or, "Eustace, Eustace," .... referring to his childhood fluffy toy.

[My Name Is Kate]

Having someone raise his hands so he could see them, then saying "useless" not once, but twice, seems like a dramatic gesture, as though he were thinking about his place in history, and he wanted to go out with some sort of memorable words befitting the tragic, would-be hero that he saw himself as. Whether he was thinking about anyone besides himself in those final moments, I have no idea.

[GARY POPOLO]

Roger, I believe you are correct about both the pictures of the girls found on JWB and also about him not being the type of person to settle down and having only one woman in his life. From all I read about him he did love to love all pretty woman. Reminds me of some of my unmarried friends. I think we all know someone like that in our lives. By that I mean both men and woman! Those were the days!! Ha!

[Dave Taylor]

We've had it all wrong this whole time. Booth wasn't referring to his hands when he said, "Useless". Here's what Lt. Doherty said in 1886 about it:



It was that pesky Davy who was the useless one!

[LincolnMan]

Dave, what an interesting discovery. I've never heard it before. Has anyone else?

[Jim Garrett]

Good job Dave!! WHere is that from?

[Dave Taylor]

It's a newspaper account from Doherty. He wasn't very reliable even in 1865 and in 1886 his story seems to have practically no truth to it. According to him it looks like he single handedly surrounded the barn, set the barn on fire, pulled Booth out of the barn, tended to him on the porch, and sewed him up in a blanket all by himself.

[Jim Garrett]

and went through his pockets!

[BettyO]

I also notice that he claims that Booth was "shot in the abdomen" - i.e. belly, I would think -- that in itself is wrong -

But I like the "Useless" designation - makes sense -- very good, Dave!

[GARY POPOLO]

Betty, You are correct. First shoot in the abdomen? Two inches below were Lincoln was shoot? Lincoln's head must have been located below his chest then. I understood that Mr. Lincoln was was shoot in the head. That is a long way from his abdomen. I do like the thought of Booth looking at Harold and saying useless

[LincolnMan]

The story doesn't make sense as far as timing either. There was a period of time between Herold surrendering and Booth being dragged out of the burning barn.

[Dave Taylor]

This account by Doherty has very little in the way of truth to it. This is one of the things I've been working on with my Garrett presentation. I'm fortunate to have many, many accounts written by Garretts, Baker, Conger, Doherty, and the other soldiers. The difficulty has been assimilating the differing accounts together to establish the most likely series of events and actions.

From this excerpt from Doherty, the only things that are truthful is that Davy surrendered himself to him (technically he surrendered to Baker, who gave him over to Doherty) and that Doherty did enter the barn after Booth was shot. Baker was the first to enter and he and Doherty together pulled Booth out.

[LincolnMan]

Just wondering, did Doherty ever write a book? Everyone else has!

[JB Banning]

My take on it is Booth was telling Herold their undertaking was useless.

[Laurie Verge]

Not sure how close Herold was to the dying assassin, but I certainly agree that Booth was talking about their undertaking being useless.

A thought: I am not a Shakespearean anything, but could there possibly be a tie-in to his raising his hands and declaring "useless, useless" to a line from Shakespeare? I happen to be one of those who believes John Andrews's thesis that "Shakespeare Killed Abraham Lincoln" from the standpoint that the Bard had a great influence on most of the Booths' upbringings.